After a year’s break, the long-awaited thirteenth International Organ Music Festival will take place at Dubulti Evangelical Lutheran Church Vox angelica! According to tradition, the festival concerts will take place every Sunday at 18.00, this summer – from July 18 to September 12. Festival producer EDITE ALPE tells more about everything in the “Urgent Conversation”.
“Complex hard time last summer we were not allowed to realize the thirteenth festival – this year we would have been the fourteenth, “says Edite.
“As the figure shows, the number is no longer small – we are not getting older, but richer in experience.
The idea of an organ music festival in Jūrmala started thanks to an instrument that was brought from England around 2000 and installed and restored here in Dubulti Church. The tool is rich enough, one of the few outside Riga that has three manuals. Concerts can be played on it, and it is also maintained in a regular order, which is the basis for the concerts of the organ music festival. That’s how the tradition began. (..) Glad we can finally continue. “
Our youngest generation of organists, graduates of Jurmala Music High School, who have proven themselves in this not-so-simple pandemic year by winning prizes in international online competitions and participating in live video concerts, will symbolically resound the festival with new hope for the future. The festival will open on July 18 with the concert “In the Light of Hope”, with the participation of young organists Sandra Baldiņa, Katrīna Štālmane and Pāvels Ceļikovs, soloist, violinist of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and teacher of Jurmala Music High School Liene Neija-Kalniņa.
Asked if the young musicians include Edīte Alpe ‘s own students, Edīte answers in the affirmative: “Yes, this time, as never before, I will allow to organize a concert with my brand new students.
I am so proud that at the Jurmala Music High School during these years, since I have been working with the organ class here, I am lucky with good students who can really play and perform.
Of course, they are still very young – two have just finished 12th grade, but the third participant will be studying with me last year, 12th grade. This year we open the festival with a concert, which has been given a symbolic name – “Hope in the Light”. It seemed so appropriate to me after a year of silence – that now, hopefully, we will finally be able to play music again and the whole cultural life in general will be able to resume with its traditional capacity.
The presence of young people is also significant. Want young people to enter music. We will see. So far, they have brilliantly completed their studies. “
During the festival, nine concerts are planned this summer, in which not only Latvian organists together with soloists – instrumentalists and singers, but also English organist from Germany Douglas Bruce (Douglas Bruce). Latvian organist Ligita Sneibe, who lives in Sweden, as well as Latvian organists Edīte Alpe, Aigars Reinis, Kristīne Adamaite will also visit, but in one of the concerts, both organ and harpsichord will be played by Roberts Hansons. Many well-known musicians will take part in the festival: flutists Dita Krenberga and Ilze Urbāne, saxophonists Artis Sīmanis and Aigars Raumanis, percussionists Elīna Endzele and Ernests Mediņš, singers Laura Grecka, Ilona Bagele, Dainis Kalnačs and world-famous Latvian bass
One of the festival’s magnets that arouses public interest and has become a known standard during the festival’s existence is a video projection on the screen, which allows everyone present to watch the organist, as well as other musicians on the balcony, up close – this will bring musicians closer to listeners this year!
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